Forget the lie of ‘white genocide’ – the real crisis is a broken economy

This week, three seemingly unrelated events unfolded within 24 hours that, when viewed together and holistically, paint a sobering picture of the state of our nation.

On Monday, 12 May 2025, 59 white Afrikaners boarded a chartered flight to the United States under the guise of seeking refuge from a so-called “white genocide” in South Africa.

It’s a false concept that has been peddled by well-funded right-wing disinformation networks, a dangerous narrative designed to distort the truth of our country for political currency.

At its core is a grievance about race-based laws and an apparent inability to remain in South Africa due to exclusion from economic opportunity.

The following morning, I sat as a member of the Department of Trade, Industry, and Competition (dtic) portfolio committee as the department presented to Parliament its latest report on B-BBEE.

What was meant to be a tool of redress, of economic justice, and of meaningful participation has instead become deeply flawed. Ownership is still not transformed. Most Charter Councils aren’t even operational. Reporting is dismal. Only 35% of JSE-listed companies submitted reports in 2022. Black ownership in the formal economy has stagnated. And the poorest remain the poorest.

Also on Tuesday, Stats SA released the latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the first quarter of 2025. Data is by its nature straightforward and devoid of bias or emotion. And the data showed the following: since 2014, unemployment among black South Africans has increased by 6.7%. Among white South Africans, it has declined by 1%.

At the same time, the average monthly income of a white-headed household is R24,646. For a black-headed household, it is five times smaller at R5,297.

When the myth of “white marginalisation” is fed to the world, we must confront it not just as false, but as an inversion of the truth.

Still, it would be dishonest to pretend that things are going well for anyone. They aren’t – and this is the tragedy. Everyone is suffering. There is no group that is thriving in this stagnant, failing economy. We are, quite frankly, in a lose-lose scenario, in a race to the bottom.

When there’s no growth, we are forced to fight over scarcity. Like animals circling a drying watering hole, we begin to turn on one another instead of challenging the real cause of our hunger: a government that has failed to deliver growth, failed to transform and failed to govern.

In Tuesday’s dtic committee, I made the point that transformation must become truly broad-based. Empowerment without ownership is tokenism. And it is showing in these numbers.

We must stop fighting for crumbs in the old economy and start building new economies, these being township economies, rural value chains and digital frontiers. That’s how we create ownership from the ground up. But even this alone is not enough.

South Africa’s crisis is not just a crisis of stagnation, which breeds inequality. For over a decade, we’ve grown at an average of just 1% per year. That is slow collapse. And until we get serious about expanding the economy, we will remain trapped in this cycle – fighting each other, instead of fighting for a better country.

Build One South Africa has proposed a Growth Charter, which we consider a serious roadmap to 5% GDP growth in three years. It includes:

• Investing in SMMEs, which already contribute 40% to GDP, but receive only 6% of bank loans;


• Modernising infrastructure, particularly through public-private partnerships to unlock water, transport and energy solutions;


• Reforming the labour market to make hiring easier and promote youth employment;


• Securing energy and ending load shedding by diversifying generation and decentralising the grid; and


• Expanding trade and industrial policy to open new markets and back value-added manufacturing.

South Africa needs not just transformation, but a growth-driven economy. We need both equity and expansion. We need both ownership and opportunity. We need to build.

So yes, let’s confront the lies. Let’s reject the myths of “white genocide”. But let’s also reject the false comfort of symbolic policies that fail to deliver real change.

And let us remember that when the economy grows, hope grows. When people work, dignity returns. And when a country believes again, it can begin again. Let’s stop managing decline and start building growth. DM